Montreal is very much the Boston of Canada, if you replace "wants to be Irish" with "wants to be French." So the Canadiens and Bruins rivalry, which has gotten extra-chippy recently, is an opportunity for the rest of the NHL to stand back and say "let's hope there are no survivors."

Last night's iteration was a remarkably scuffle-free game, a 1-0 Bruins win on a first period Andrew Ference goal that stood up. The only drawback to a close, clean game is that it gave visiting Boston fans two whole periods with a lead to talk shit. So with about a minute left in the game, the Bell Centre finally came to blows: a group of Bruins fans and a group of Habs fans launched into in a brief but intense team battle. During a stoppage in play, Tim Thomas and the refs couldn't help but be morbid spectators.